Ophelia creeping away from the US coast...

Category 1 Hurricane Ophelia pounded the NC coast for over 40 hours as 
it moved VERY slowly along the coastline.  It never actually made 
landfall, but the western eyewall remained over land the whole time.  I 
suspect we'll hear more about the flooding and coastal 
erosion/destruction in the coming days.  It's nothing like what Katrina 
did, but not negligible either.  You can view a couple of radar loops of 
the slow transit at:
http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/tropics/ophelia/Ophelia_13-14Sep05.gif
http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/tropics/ophelia/Ophelia_14-15Sep05.gif

Last night, Ophelia was downgraded to a tropical storm and is still 
sitting just east of the NC/VA border.  The latest intensity is 50kts 
and 996mb.  The forecast track takes it NNE, just clipping by Cape Cod 
and perhaps hitting Nova Scotia on Saturday night.

Elsewhere, that large tropical wave I mentioned a couple days ago is 
still there, moving slowly westward, and is not in any rush to get 
better organized.  It must still be watched very closely, because of the 
potential track if it develops.

And lastly, an area of disturbed weather has been festering at the 
trailing edge of an old cold front, just north of Puerto Rico.  This has 
been gradually getting better organized, but again, it's in no hurry.  
Either one of these systems could become TD17 (and TD18?) over the 
weekend.

Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.